A couple of lines in Testament of Youth caught my attention this week for a possible paper topic at semester’s end. In “This Loneliest Hour” section, Vera realizes nothing can ever completely console her or give her closure regarding Edward’s death. During one of her lowest, bleakest times, she mentions how “sympathetic friends wrote earnestly to me of the experimental compensations of Spiritualism” (445). We might have briefly discussed this in the past, but the use of séances and mediums in the hope of finding some indication, however elusive of a future reunion ‘beyond the sun’ (445) seems to have been an emerging trend as a direct result of the war.

Who were these wives, mothers and sisters who sought communication with the dead, and how effective did they find this method of reuniting with their loved ones? Everyone has their own opinion on this sort of thing, but it’s clear Vera’s generation developed a kind of obsession with the dead. Very few were left unaffected by the war and had their own experience with the death of a family member or friend. Everyone dealt with loss differently, and for many women desperate to reconnect with their soldiers, a séance or medium made sense.

Although Vera writes how she didn’t take her friends’ advice in seeking that kind of spirituality because it “held no comfort for me,” she recalls how on a walk one summer morning after Edward’s death she felt his presence beside her. I’d like to learn more about how Vera’s generation formed their views of spirituality based on the catastrophic amount of death that surrounded them. Religion and spirituality, of course, weren’t new concepts at that time, but the rush of aching hearts and mad minds drove women to new heights in talking to soldiers who’d gone to the afterlife.

I’ve come to admire Vera Brittain so much in reading Testament of Youth. Maybe she didn’t attempt a spiritual meeting with Roland or Edward because of her strength to “become the complete automaton, working mechanically and no longer even pretending to be animated by ideals” (450). She gave up her feelings and became cold and numb, living with no confidence or security because “the dead were dead and would never return” (463).